Top 10 Longings Of The Jewish People - Pt.1

Front 1

List the first five longings of the Jewish people:

Back 1

1) Love for God & neighbor
2) Law
3) Land
4) Temple
5) King

Front 2

List the second five longings of the Jewish people:

Back 2

6) International blessing
7) Intergenerational fidelity
8) God’s goodness
9) God’s hesed
10) God's triumph over the tyranny of death

Front 3

1) Why did the Jewish people long to love God & neighbor?

Back 3

According to the Jewish story, the pervasiveness of evil, suffering, and death (Gen. 4-11) is fundamentally grounded in a refusal to love God and one's neighbor (Gen. 3:1-12). Thus, to love God and neighbor from the heart is to participate in reversing the bitter trajectory of evil, suffering, and death.

Front 4

2) Why did the Jewish people long for God's Law?

Back 4

The Jewish people longed for God's Law, because it was an invitation to participate in the life of God. That is, when the Jewish people were committed to keeping God's Law, they were not simply keeping a list of rules, they were participating in the life of God by embodying, expressing, and reflecting the gracious and self-giving acts of God. One of the ways that this can be seen is in the laws concerning strangers (Lev. 19:33; Ruth 1-4).

Front 5

3) Why did the Jewish people long for the Land?

Back 5

The people longed for a Land because their life with the LORD and one another was meant to be embodied in a land that they could call home. This home was meant to be a kind of Edenic land that God would graciously re-entrust to their care (Gen. 13:10). In this Home / Land, God's people would build a shared history between God and their neighbor.

Front 6

4) Why did the Jewish people long for the Temple?

Back 6

In the worship of the Temple, there were at least four things that God was seeking to communicate to his people:

1. God is committed to confronting evil.

2. God is committed to offering his people a radical mercy.

3. God is committed to drawing the world into a story in which God’s personal presence and glory renews, restores, and tangibly inhabits the entire creation.

4. God is committed to giving his people portraits and practices that adequately capture the tragedy of sin.

Consequently, in the Temple's corporate worship, these four longings were publicly expressed and celebrated.

Front 7

5) Why did the Jewish people long for a King?

Back 7

The Jewish people longed for a king, because he would live the life of an ideal Israelite (son) who would place himself under the authority of God's Word (Deut. 17:18), actively oppose the mortal enemies of God and his people (1 Sam 10:7, Ps. 2), and embody the character of God to his people (Deut. 17:19-20).

Front 8

6) Why did the Jewish people long for international blessing?

Back 8

The Jewish people longed for international blessings, because the divine summons to be a blessing to the nations was part of their earliest existence and calling as a people (Gen. 12:3; Deut. 4:5-8).

Front 9

7) Why did the Jewish people long for intergenerational fidelity?

Back 9

The Jewish people longed for intergenerational fidelity because intragenerational sin had frequently devastated their people from their earliest history as God's people (Gen. 12-50), and because they had been summoned by God to transmit the word of God's saving activity to the next generation (Deut. 6:4-9; Ps. 78:4).

Front 10

8) Why did the Jewish people long for God's goodness?

Back 10

The Jewish people longed for God's goodness, because his goodness was one of the fundamental denials that has fueled the devastating bitterness of evil and sin throughout human history. Thus, to be persuaded of, and to live in response to God's goodness, is to participate in reversing the bitter trajectory of sin (Gen. 37-50).

Front 11

9) Why did the Jewish people long for God's hesed?

Back 11

The Jewish people longed to experience God's hesed, because a past history of personal presence and kindness with the living God required the experience of his future personal presence (Gen. 19:19; 32:9-10; Ex. 34:6-7; Ps. 136). Being persuaded of the LORD's hesed is something that the people of Israel deeply wrestled with throughout their own history (Ex. 16:2-3).

Front 12

10) Why did the Jewish people long for an escape from the tyranny of death?

Back 12

For the Jewish people, the tyranny of death included the bitter scourge of moral, physical, and spiritual death. When properly understood, the tragic tyranny of death was not merely an external risk, but an internal risk as well. The Jewish people longed for an escape from the tyranny of death because apart from a comprehensive escape from the tyranny of death (moral, physical, and spiritual), none of the central longings of their people could ever be realized.